man no longer remains,
but a thing with a sensitive soul only, that is, the brute animal.

And this is the meaning or intention of the second part of the devised
Song, in which are placed the opinions of others.

CHAPTER VIII.

The most beautiful branch which grows up from the root of Reason is
Discretion. For as St. Thomas says thereupon in the prologue to the
book of Ethics, to know the order of one thing to another is the
proper act of Reason; and this is Discretion. One of the most
beautiful and sweetest fruits of this branch is the reverence which
the lesser owes to the greater. Wherefore Tullius, in the first
chapter of the Offices, when speaking of the beauty which shines forth
in Uprightness, says that reverence is part of that beauty; and thus
as this reverence is the beauty of Uprightness, so its opposite is
baseness and want of uprightness; which opposite quality it is
possible to term irreverence, or rather as impudent boldness, in our
Vulgar Tongue.

And therefore this Tullius in the same place says: "To treat with
contemptuous indifference that which others think of one, not only is
the act of an arrogant, but also of a dissolute person," which means
no other except that arrogance and dissolute conduct show want of
self-knowledge, which is the beginning of the capacity for all
reverence. Wherefore I, desiring (and bearing meanwhile all reverence
both to the Prince and to the Philosopher) to remove the infirmity
from the minds of some men, in order afterwards to build up thereupon
the light of truth, before I proceed to confute the opinions
propounded, will show how, whilst confuting those opinions, I argue
with irreverence neither against the Imperial Majesty nor against the
Philosopher. For if in any part of this entire book I should appear
irreverent, it would not be so bad as in this treatise; in which,
whilst treating of Nobility, I ought to appear Noble, and not vile.

And firstly I will prove that I do not presume against the authority
of the Philosopher; then I will prove that I do not presume against
Imperial Majesty.

I say, then, that when the Philosopher says, "that which appears to
the most is impossible to be entirely false," I do not mean to speak
of the external appearance, that is, the sensual, but of that which
appears within, the rational; since the sensual appearance, according
to most people, is many times most false, especially in the common
things appreciable by the se